Hello Everyone!
I hope that everyone is having a good summer break so far! Are you traveling or on road trips? If you are looking for some good books to read, I have two recommendations. I just finished reading two interesting and similar books. They are both set during summer break and have the loss of a parent and missing them as a central plot point. Another similarity is trying something new to make them feel closer to their family.
A Thousand Questions by Saadia Farqui
Mimi is a Pakistani-American middle schooler, who doesn’t know where her father is. He left her and her mom years ago and never came back. Mimi’s mother decides to go to Pakistan to visit their family after a long time of not seeing each other. Mimi wants to find her father as some people say he is currently working in Karachi. Mimi stays at her grandparents’ house and discovers many things about her family. Here she meets another character named Sakina.
Sakina has other problems. Her father works for Mimi’s family as a chef and is suffering from diabetes but can’t afford his insulin injections and medicine. Sakina can’t go to school but wants to one day. She takes a test to go to a school but fails the English test she needs for admission. Mimi and Sakina unexpectedly meet each other and find out that they don’t have much in common but a friendship blossoms for them. They support each other.
Will Mimi find answers to her thousands of questions?
Will Sakina be able to pass and learn English with the help of Mimi? Will Mimi find her father? Will Sakina’s father get better? How will this summer break in Pakistan work out? Read this book to find out!
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie by Erin Soderberg
Lucy Peach was never close to her family until her mother died. Due to a very helpful invention her mother made before she died, they became millionaires. With a million dollars, their father decides to buy a food truck and sell homemade pies. They chose to do that as that was Lucy’s mother’s wish before she died. For the summer, Lucy, Herb, Freddy, and their dad go on a trip to the Midwest to sell pies in their food truck. They have a few varieties of pies and end up selling not too much. With this trip, Lucy feels closer to her family. At first, she thought it would be a useless project but ended up loving the idea. The family goes through struggles at some times and has lots of fun on their adventure using family recipes to make pies and coming together. When a food truck competition comes up, Lucy is down for a good competition. What happens to the Peach family? Will they win the competition? Will they get over their grief of losing their mom? Read this book to find out!